Boundaries: If Martha had built a fence...

Isn’t it amazing that women were created with a brain that’s geared to multitasking? It’s a deliberate inclusion in our abilities by a loving creator who knew we’d need it in our roles as nurturers of the family unit and businesswomen (Proverbs 31:11-29).

Because multi-tasking is built in, it’s easy to do, but here’s the rub. Nurturing and growing your abundance can be overwhelming because there’s always another ‘growth action’ in growing abundance, another school run and another meal to cook when you get home from work. As professionals, we’re faced with deadlines and demands. If you’re not careful, you’ll be engulfed in the long to-do list. That’s exactly what happened to nurturing Martha.

She was a gracious hostess who welcomed Jesus into her home and immediately set about serving Him and His disciples. Her loving, nurturing nature in serving engulfed her to the point where she was “distracted by much serving.” While her sister Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet and enjoying Him, she was running around making food and seeing to their needs without addressing her own. Martha wasn’t happy that the load of servicing guests fell on her while her sister enjoyed the food and the company. Mary wasn’t moving, so she went to Jesus with her frustration. “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me.” Luke 10:40.

Jesus shows her the real issue in the situation: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41-42. The one thing, intimacy with Jesus, sitting at his feet, adoring him as she learnt from the master, was what was needed.

Jesus was not diminishing Martha’s service. He was leading her to look at her focus. The central issue Jesus underscores is time with God. Relationship, and the one central relationship which matters - being with Jesus. And this is where fence building comes into our story. Had Martha set boundaries in her life, she would have clearly defined her needs and expressed to the household her need for time to grow in God.

We build fences around our property mark off the boundaries of your area. A fence shows which area of land is your responsibility. This area is where you express your ownership in freedom, and you decide who and what you will allow within that fenced boundary. 

In life, God expects us to establish and maintain boundaries. These boundaries are the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual property lines that help us distinguish what our responsibility is and isn’t. 

God operates within boundaries, has set boundaries for us and expects us to set boundaries in our lives. 

- Boundaries tell others how you want to be treated (what’s okay and what’s not okay). Boundaries protect you from being mistreated - they keep you safe. 

- Boundaries create a healthy separation (physical and emotional) between you and others, allowing you to have your own personal space and privacy, your own feelings, thoughts, needs, and ideas. They allow you to be yourself rather than an extension of someone else or who someone else wants you to be. 

- Boundaries help you focus on what’s most important to you. It focuses you on fulfilling your life story through your choices and actions. 

- Boundaries also improve relationships by creating clear expectations and responsibilities so the relationship is operated in a spirit of truth. 

There are seven recognised areas where we need to have boundaries:

Physical boundaries

Sexual boundaries

Emotional and mental boundaries

Spiritual or religious boundaries

Financial and material boundaries.

Time boundaries

Non-negotiable boundaries. 

A lack of boundaries in any of these areas of your life will manifest in unhappiness, a sense of futility, frustration, secret anger, or passive-aggressive behaviours and many other ways. That constant fatigue you feel, or your sense of wanting to run away from the world, could very well be a sign that you don’t have well-defined boundaries established in your life. It this is you, find a good cognitive counsellor who can equip you with the tools to bring the change needed so your life story can be whole.  

Creating boundaries is critical to your emotional health as they define who you are, your values, your responsibilities, and more. When we lack boundaries, we give ourselves to everything, not taking proper care of ourselves.

Time is always in demand in our lives as women, so it’s very important to start with the important before getting to all the urgent things your day is filled with. If you create a mental space where you can draw inward to that quiet place within and focus solely on God, you change your perspective for the day.  So, delay reaching for your phone and start the day right with God. Though Jesus had an important mission to accomplish on Earth, He still took time to rest and care for His needs. Luke 5:16 says Jesus frequently withdrew from the crowds so He could pray and be with His Father.

Even in a house full of kids, you can make this happen. Let's see how: ‘If a passing stranger walking through the rural village of Epworth, England, on any given day between 1700 and 1720 had peered through the window of the home of the rector of the local Anglican church, they might have caught sight of something quite strange. Depending on the time of day, this observer might have seen a woman sitting in a chair with her kitchen apron pulled up over her head while ten children read, studied, or played all around her. The woman under the apron would have been Susanna Wesley, who assumed this odd posture for two hours almost every day.

With a house full of children and no quiet space, Mother Wesley’s solution to this was to bring her Bible to her favourite chair and throw her long apron up over her head, forming a sort of tent. This became something akin to the ‘tent of meeting’, the tabernacle in the days of Moses in the Old Testament. Every person in the household, from the smallest toddler to the oldest domestic helper, knew well to respect this signal. When Susanna was under the apron, she was with God and was not to be disturbed except in the case of the direst emergency. There, in the privacy of her little tent, she interceded for her husband and children and plumbed the deep mysteries of God in the scriptures.

For Susanna Wesley, there was no amount of distraction that could keep her from her time with God. That kind of life, deeply rooted, produced great fruit, as evidenced not only by the people who came to hear her teach but also by the children she influenced. Its power is in the quiet trust of gentle souls who are willing to pull away from the everyday to commune with God.’ Excerpt from https://faithgateway.com/blogs/christian-books/praying-example-susanna-wesleySusanna

Pray and ask the boundary questions.

What do you value? What is God calling you to do beyond the labels (woman, mother, daughter, professional)? Where do you need to set boundaries in areas of your life to bring balance and operate the way God intended you to? And what boundaries do you need to protect this? Consider these questions in your heart this day and implement the changes you need to make to establish these boundaries in your life. Spend time with God and ask for wisdom because change for you and those who will be affected by the boundaries is not easy. Watch out for my soon-to-be-released book entitled, 'Setting Healthy Boundaries: A Practical Guide'.  If you have been a Martha, always putting the needs of others ahead of yourself to your detriment, take a step to learn how to relate and treat yourself the way God set out: love God, love your neighbour as yourself. You cannot love others if you don't know how to love yourself. Here's a useful book to give you a starting point on how you should treat your life to live it as the gift God gave you: 'The Little Book on Church Counselling: Creating a safe place to bring wholeness and healing.’ Click the button below for more and please use the many free resources offered by subscribing.

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